ME302C - Mobility Entrepreneurship Weekly Blog Post with Ethan Eyler, Lyft Director of Ride Experience
BY CHRISTOPH MEYER
ME 302C - The Future of the Automobile - Mobility Entrepreneurship is a Stanford course taught by Reilly Brennan and Stephen Zoepf in Spring 2017. This course will feature a series of guest speakers across the spectrum of the mobility industry, with Pearl, Turo, and Lyft featured among others.
In order to provide an inside view to mobility enthusiasts not enrolled in the course, I will be publishing a weekly post on the CARS blog. These posts will feature a high level summary of a brief discussion with each of the guest speakers. While the content shared in the classroom will be kept confidential and off-the-record, I will interview them for 15-20 minutes afterwards. I may probe them on topics that were covered in class but the interviewee will have the discretion as to how they answer. The goal will be to learn more about their companies as well as delve into the speakers’ views on general trends in the industry and predictions of where things are headed.
Keep your eyes out for these weekly updates - full speed ahead!
Lyft finds itself in interesting times. The company stands in a unique position in the industry, partnering with both GM and most recently with Waymo, while benefiting from Uber’s recent stumbles. My conversation with Ethan Eyler, Director of Ride Experience, further highlighted what distinguishes Lyft in the rapidly evolving mobility industry. It was clear from our conversation how important brand and experience are to Lyft. As the ride-hailing industry stands to become commoditized, Lyft is doubling down to create “moments of delight” for customers. Lyft’s playful approach and strategy, the Lyft “wink”, is the company’s potential competitive advantage to differentiate itself among other, larger outfits. This mentality goes beyond the customer offering and lies deep within the company’s culture and its employees. While competitors have become infamous for their less-than-desirable culture, Lyft has managed to create a healthy internal atmosphere while becoming a respected and admired brand in the eyes of the public. The company’s future looks promising but there are sure to be more interesting turns along the way.
How do you think about brand / differentiation in an autonomous world?
“We think about it as a continuation of this idea of the Lyft “wink”. We want riders to feel there is comfort and humanity in their experience. We really are trying to engineer soul into this experience. Down the road, this can take on many different forms. The type of car is one way. We could customize the rider’s vehicle based on their activity, such as going to the beach or skiing. We can also play with the features inside the vehicle. When people won’t own their own car anymore, they’ll still want to feel welcome. This can be achieved based on colors, lighting, and the music that is played. We want to be able to add these personal touches.”
How did Lyft create a great culture internally?
“This really starts with our founders. From day one, we always knew that drivers were core to the to the experience. They are the most important part of our business. Our entire company embodies this philosophy — we are there for drivers, provide them immediate support, and always make decisions with them in mind. This focus on the drivers is external as well — you can see it by the way we talk about our drivers in the media. We can’t fake this culture — people really believe the mission internally. Our mission is providing the best transportation possible and everyone in the company is fired up to achieve this goal.”
How will Lyft be able to retain its identity and brand when working on so many partnerships?
“When selecting partners, we choose carefully, and can afford to be selective in our partnerships. Our main factor in aligning ourselves with companies who share our values. You can see this with Starbucks — we really do share the same values of caring for our people and offering a great product. Howard Schultz said it as well — he mentioned that Starbucks could have chosen any number of partners, but selected Lyft because of aligned values.”
How does Lyft think about drivers with so much emphasis on them but a potential future without them?
“A time when all cars are autonomous and all trips can be completed in autonomous vehicles is still a ways out, and there are five to ten more years where some trips can be completed by autonomous vehicles, but many won’t be. For that, we’ll need more and more drivers.
Currently, we work hard to create a good experience for the drivers. The “car-stache” really set the ethos early on. Our original mantra of “your friend with a car” has stayed in the identity of the company. Our drivers are friendlier and some have kept the original traditions, such as the fist bump. There’s still this sense for Lyft riders and drivers of “being an insider” and “part of the club”. Something key for our drivers is to try and read the passenger. Some people simply don’t feel like chatting. This is still consistent with the original vision though. If we’re “your friend with a car”, you don’t have to talk: with a friend, you can enjoy comfortable silence. Many of our projects as a company show just how much we want to create this good experience for the drivers: the fun activations we do, the promotions, enabling tipping, etc. are all there to translate to a better experience.”
What is the biggest issue in user experience today?
“The biggest issue is the balance between growth and experience. We are scaling at such a fast rate that we need to make sure we are maintaining the experience we want for every single ride. This challenge is classic, with many other companies facing the struggle of moving at speed while maintaining the quality of their product. As a result, we have had to ask ourselves how to build the focus on experience in our company’s ethos. Additionally, we are thinking about tools to affect the experience, such as the Amp. We want to create moments in time that highlight our brand and intrinsically help people to behave in a certain way.”
How do you think about media and how it will influence the transportation industry going forward?
“In all honesty, I haven’t thought too much about this. This will be an entirely new channel. I have no doubt that major partnerships between media and transportation companies will be struck going forward. You can imagine a world where someone gets into their Lyft and their queue of movies or songs plays immediately. We could hypothetically do an API integration to make these two services integrate seamlessly and have people feel at home.
Personalization will be key — it will act as the soul in the car. In the future there will be less traffic and autonomous cars are widespread, so for example, people could live further from the cities and everyday use a “commuter” type autonomous car, where they could work or take phone calls. The key in this future will be personalization. The vehicle would provide everything the rider wants and know the rider’s preference before they get into the car.”
How do you think about media and how it will influence the transportation industry going forward?
“In all honesty, I haven’t thought too much about this. This will be an entirely new channel. I have no doubt that major partnerships between media and transportation companies will be struck going forward. You can imagine a world where someone gets into their Lyft and their queue of movies or songs plays immediately. We could hypothetically do an API integration to make these two services integrate seamlessly and have people feel at home.
Personalization will be key — it will act as the soul in the car. In the future there will be less traffic and autonomous cars are widespread, so for example, people could live further from the cities and everyday use a “commuter” type autonomous car, where they could work or take phone calls. The key in this future will be personalization. The vehicle would provide everything the rider wants and know the rider’s preference before they get into the car.”
How does Lyft distinguish itself in the future?
“The most important for us will be to create a differentiated experience in the car and in the app.”
What do you think is the biggest misconception in the industry right now?
“For us, the biggest misperception is that we are seen as the underdog. We are in 300 cities across the United States and are growing at an incredible pace.”
